“It’s him or me,” Paul said, grabbing her around the shoulders the way he’d seen men in movies do. “Do you hear me, woman?” though of course she could hear him. “It’s him or me!”

And the poor girl looked up into Paul’s face with the giant startled eyes of a soon-to-be-ruined baby deer, and she said so sadly, “Me.” She brushed off his hands, which were hurting her ever so slightly, not at all amused. “If it’s between him and you, I choose me.”